Page:CRS Report 98-611.djvu/4

CRS-4 dated January 7, 1941, further defined the status and functions of the Office for Emergency Management and was also issued pursuant to E.O. 8248. Thus, the impression was left that administrative orders might be a subset of directives used to detail further policy primarily established by executive orders. However, this soon proved not to be the case.

The third administrative order, so designated, was a July 29, 1943, letter transferring certain functions of the Office for Emergency Management. The next two orders, issued April 13, 1945, concerned keeping flags at half-staff on all federal buildings and temporarily closing federal departments and agencies in conjunction with ceremonies on the occasion of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. Both were signed by Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. A September 10, 1945, administrative order, signed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, indicated how the term “World War II” was to be officially used. The next order, dated August 15, 1945, and signed by President Harry S. Truman, terminated the Office of Censorship and voluntary censorship of the domestic press and radio.

These and subsequent instruments denominated as administrative orders took a variety of forms — delegations of authority, determinations, directives, findings, letters, memoranda, and orders — on a wide array of administrative matters. In fact, some items appeared to overlap other types of presidential directives. For example, some international trade instruments, sometimes in letter form, were considered to be administrative orders, as were designations of officials. In 1972, certain instruments, identified as presidential determinations, but appearing in CFR Title 3 compilations in the administrative orders category, began to have hyphenated identification numbers, the first figure indicating the year of issuance and the second marking the sequence of promulgation. Presidential determinations, as a particular type of administrative order, first appeared in the Federal Register and CFR in 1964. In general, indications are that, during at least the past 40 years, presidential directives published in the Federal Register in forms other than those of executive orders, or proclamations, have been denominated as administrative orders when reproduced in CFR Title 3 compilations.

Certificates

Apparently only one presidential certificate, as such, was published in the Federal Register and subsequently included in a CFR Title 3 compilation. Issued March 27, 1940, pursuant to a farm crop production and harvesting loan statute of